


All Creatures Great and Small

by NancyBrown



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Fluffy Horror, Gen, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8391559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: It's Despair's turn to visit Delirium.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tveckling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tveckling/gifts).



Despair came to Delirium's realm, taking her own painful turn to visit their mad sibling. Del lay in a gooey puddle of blue-orange which Despair chose not to examine more closely lest she discover that it respirated. She had her own problems.

"You came," Del said, with her half-laugh. "Sit."

"No."

Despair let her eyes move across the cracked world. Her own demons should never see the light of mortal day but Delirium's creatures lurched with misshapen legs and melting eyes, sliding in and out through a skewed mirror. Despair felt right at home.

Despair did not keep pets, but she kept the idea of them. A glaucous, eldrich monster, oozing inescapable horrors to drip into a frozen, terrified ear. A starving dog, eyes crusted and fur chewed off to show grey skin suppurating with sores. A great fish, bloated with rot on a salty shore. A vicious, primal near-human, all teeth and stink and matted hair. The creatures existed only in Despair's vast mind, whining after her for attention she was far too tired to offer, and biting her legs and hands when she lingered too long down a dark path of thought.

One of Del's beasts bumped her bare foot. Despair glanced down. "What?"

Del smiled, wiggling her fingers. The creature formed into a ball of fur with pointed ears and sharp teeth. Tabby. Real. How had it wandered into this world of nonsense? Despair didn't know and couldn't say.

"Good kit," said Delirium, scratching the kitten's head. It looked up at Despair and mewed with a plaintive, demanding cry.

"No."

It mewed again.

Despair growled. Then she slumped to a seat beside Del. The kitten bumped against her hand, demanding a pat. Despair gave it a tentative touch between its soft ears. Del smiled.

"I like her," said Del.

"Okay."


End file.
